


your lips, my lips, apocalypse

by transtlanticism



Category: Project Nemesis Series - Brendan Reichs
Genre: F/M, They Both Die At The End - Freeform, although i love that book, apocalypse actually happens, it's a bit inspired by it, it's a nasty one, nemesis doesn't work au, no not the adam silvera book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28071015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transtlanticism/pseuds/transtlanticism
Summary: Project Nemesis fails, and everyone dies.
Relationships: Thomas "Tack" Russo/Min Wilder
Kudos: 1





	your lips, my lips, apocalypse

23:59:59

TACK

There’s a lot I want to say to Min when I stand outside the door to her trailer. 

The first thing is that the sky is on fire. Black clouds roil above my head. Lightning strikes everywhere. I hear yelling from the valley, screams, smoke on the horizon. My hands are shaking from cold, even as blasts of heated air arrow past me. I don’t know if she’s noticed—you’d think it would be impossible to miss, but I know Min when she’s sad. She’ll crawl under her covers with her headphones turned all the way up. 

The second is that I’m so, so sorry.

Because I’ve seen the news, and I know how this ends.

I know Virginia isn’t home, so I shoulder open the door and head straight for Min’s room. Tugging open the door, I find exactly what I suspected: a teenage girl-shaped lump under the blanket. She doesn’t stir until I tug the blanket slightly, and she throws it off, ripping her headphones away from her ears, a shocked expression on her face. I backpedal a few steps, concerned of my impending death if I stand too close.

“What are you doing here?” She spits a lock of staticky hair from her mouth. “How’d you get in?”

I gesture lamely in the direction the door. “Unlocked.” 

She shakes her head. “Why are you here?”

I hesitate, seeing the traces of a heartbroken expression written on her face. She’s seen enough of the devastation. She came here to get away from the news. And here I am, with the worst of it all.

Resolve hardens in her face as she reads my expression. “How bad?” she asks quietly.

My voice is dangerously close to cracking. “The worst.”

“Are they sure?”

I nod.

She takes a shaky breath and smooths down her hair, setting her headphones down beside her. “How long?”

“It’s hard to say—give or take—it really depends—if you look at the different—”

Her voice catches. “How long, Tack?”

“No more than twenty-four hours.” 

The ground bucks underneath us, as if to prove my point. Books tumble off the shelf above Min’s desk, cascading to the floor in a pile. She looks at them, then back at me, and her grey eyes are unreadable. 

“Twenty-four hours,” she repeats, and inhales slowly. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you,” I say, my eyes welling against their will. “And I’m sorry we’re going to die.” 

She doesn’t look scared. (I’m scared. I’m _terrified._ ) She gives me the warmest smile I’ve ever seen cross her face and stands up, taking my hands. “We don’t have time for you to be sorry,” she tells me. “We only have twenty-four hours.” 

As I watch, she opens up the timer app on her phone and scrolls it all the way to 23:59:59. Presses START. I watch the seconds count down with sick fascination.

“Come on,” she says softly, tugging me away from the device. “Let’s go for a walk.”

…

22:22:14

We’ve crossed town, the most treacherous walk of my life. People are in hysterics. Min wanted to stop by the high school to make sure her locker is straightened. “What’s the point?” I asked. “Nobody’s going to be left alive to see it cleared out.”

“I know,” she said, giving the dial a spin. “I just wanted to leave it the right way.”

Principal Myers passed us in the hall, giving us both a curt nod. I don’t think it even occurred to him to ask what we were doing there. I think he thought he was already dead.

Now we’re winding down the road, feet travelling towards the lake. Min stops to tie her shoelaces, and I strip off my sweatshirt and toss it onto the road behind me, because, God, it’s getting uncomfortably hot out here. When Min stands up, she picks up the sweatshirt and ties it around her waist.

“Why?” I ask. “Nobody will be around tomorrow to notice that it’s there.”

She shrugs. “Why leave it?”

“So I don’t have to carry it.” 

She unties it and slides it on over her long-sleeved Vampire Weekend shirt. I don’t know how she’s not sweltering. She lifts the collar of it to her nose, inhales, gives me the saddest smile. “I’m going to miss you,” she says.

“How?” 

She checks the timer on her phone, ignoring my question. “If we live long enough to make it down to the lake, I have a story for you.”

She turns and starts down the road, leaving me standing there, bewildered, trying to connect the dots.

“Min!” 

“Come on,” she calls.

“Are you keeping _secrets?_ Min!” 

…

21:57:45

The lake is flooded. We don’t make it down there.

Min’s convinced she’s going to live. She tells me the whole story.

I don’t get it. But it clears up a lot of things I never understood.

…

16:34:12

Nobody’s manning the grocery store, and it’s almost completely cleaned out, but we pick through the wreckage until we find what we’re looking for: a box of Pop-Tarts, a bag of Cheetos, and in-shell sunflower seeds. After that, I slip into the liquor store and grab a bottle of champagne, because, hey, it’s the end of the world and we might as well drink like it.

Min wrinkles her nose when I emerge with the bottle but doesn’t protest. We hike back to the high school, where the faculty lounge is wide open. We shut the door and lock it, and Min raids a drawer for plastic cups. 

I realize too late that we don’t have a bottle opener, and we end up stabbing the cork until it falls into the bottle. We take turns spitting sunflower seeds into the garbage can on the floor. She takes a sip of champagne and coughs slightly. “Whoops. Fizzier than I expected.”

“Here, let me try.” I don’t bother pouring it out. I just take a sip from the bottle. “Huh.”

“Interesting,” she says. I nod.

“Wish this stuff was in the faculty lounge all the time. Might have made Myers chill the fuck out a bit,” I say, and Min promptly sprays her mouthful out in a snort-laugh.

I open Netflix on my phone, and we watch _Gilmore Girls_ for an hour and a half, because it’s the only show we can both quote from memory. (She forced me to watch it.) (That’s a lie. I forced her to watch it.) When two episodes wrap up, she stretches and finishes off the Pop-Tart she’s been munching on. “What should we do for…14 more hours?”

I gaze out the window at the swirling maelstrom in the sky, taking another sip from the bottle. Between us, we’ve had about half of it, and I really don’t feel like drinking any more. “Want to walk up to Tip-Top?” 

“Let’s do it,” she says. “Is it just me, or is waiting to die a little tedious?”

“You’re not wrong.”

She flashes a smile. “Let’s go, then."

…

10:05:53

Ash swirls around the rock we’re sitting on. Min gazes sadly at the charred remnants of the old oak tree.

“If there’s an afterlife,” I start, but Min shakes her head.

“There isn’t.”

I hesitate. “On the off-chance—”

“There isn’t.” 

She sounds so inarguably sure of herself that a sinking feeling settles in my chest. Even though her story sounds incredible, maybe there’s something I’m missing, some layer of the universe I haven’t taken into account, some element that would suspend my disbelief. Something she knows that I don’t. 

“You think you’ll wake up again,” I say, and she just shrugs, my hoodie shifting over her thin shoulders. “What will the world be like when you do?”

“I don’t know,” Min says. “Maybe I’ll just keep dying, over and over again, for all eternity.” 

I reach for her hand, and her fingers tighten around mine. “If there’s a stopping point,” I say, “I’ll be waiting there for you.”

She doesn’t answer, just keeps holding my hand as the sky darkens with the dawn.

…

04:32:13

I wake to the bitter taste of dust in my mouth. Sweat pours down my skin, and I automatically reach for Min’s phone to check the time. Maybe we’re death-defying. Maybe we lived past the survivability of the human race. Maybe we’ll live forever.

But no. We still have four and a half hours left.

_Crap. We slept for five entire hours while the world was dying around us. We’ve wasted half our remaining time._

Suddenly fearful, I shake Min, scared that she’s already gone. But she stirs quickly, waking up and pushing black hair out of her eyes. “How much time?” she asks immediately.

“Not much.” 

She steels herself quickly. “Okay,” she says, looking at the screen. Her phone is on 30% battery life, and the screen is hard to see with the world so bright. “Okay. We’re going to be okay.”

“No, we’re not.”

Her eyes soften looking at me, and she wraps me in a back-breaking hug. I bury my face in her neck and try to hold back the terror creeping up my spine.

“We’ve got some time,” she whispers. “And when we go, we’ll go together.”

A startled laugh escapes my mouth, and I pull back to see her pale, dirt-smudged face. “Melinda Juilliard Wilder, would you do me the honour of dying with me today?” 

She smiles slightly, then leans in and kisses me, her arms winding around my neck as her lips press against mine. When she pulls back, I’m left with the taste of wintergreen gum and sharp surprise. “Yes,” she says. “I will die with you today, Thomas Russo, and it will be my privilege.”

I tug her in for another kiss.

Four and a half hours suddenly seems all too short.

…

02:15:36

The mountain air is cleaner than the air in the valley, but we’re running out of time. As we watch, Min’s phone flickers and goes dark. Scrambling to my feet, I see the entire valley shrouded in darkness. Fire Lake’s electricity has been permanently put to sleep. 

“So that’s it,” I say, my throat closing.

Min stands beside me, resting her head against mine. “That’s it.”

“What did the clock say?”

She chews on her lip. “Little over two hours.” 

“That’s maximum survivability time. It’s probably about an hour for us.”

She inhales, coughing on dust. I’ve got a pounding headache, and I can tell she feels it, too. 

Far below us, the lake flood is swallowing town. Rock crumbles off the mountains with another earthquake. As we watch, the peak of a mountain breaks and slides down its face. Trees crash to the ground around us.

I can feel the end, and it won’t take two hours to reach us.

…

01:02:25

I don’t know what time it is, or how long it’s been. All I know is that I’m lying on the ground, inhaling dust, and it’s almost impossible to breathe.

_I’ll never get to see her again._

I force my eyes open to look at Min. She’s still breathing, too, despite the lack of oxygen in the air. We’re most likely going to suffocate to death before any natural disaster reaches us. The good news is that the fire can’t survive long enough to reach us. The bad news is that we need oxygen, too.

“I love you,” I say, and her eyes flutter open just long enough to meet mine. She gives me a weak smile, and it’s all I’ll ever need for the rest of my life.

There’s no sun anymore, but I know our time is almost up. 

Min’s scratchy voice floats to me from where she lies. “Remember setting off fireworks here when we were kids?”

“Joke’s on us. We didn’t need to do that to burn this place down,” I manage. 

She chokes on a laugh. Her nose is bleeding. Mine probably is too, but I don’t have the strength to check. 

“This fucking sucks,” I mutter.

Her voice is weak. “Dying always does.”

Lightning strikes directly above us, and for a moment, I’m sure this is it.

“Tack.” Min’s throat sounds hoarse, her voice deep with smoke inhalation. “Tack, _look._ ” 

I can barely see anything anymore. “At what?”

“Rain.”

As I force my eyes open, I feel the first drops on my skin. Water, settling the fires, taming them down to a low blaze.

I know it won’t do anything but extend our time, but as I look at my best friend next to me, both of us dying, that’s all I really need. A little more time.

The earth shakes under our feet. The very mountain we’re standing on is breaking in half. I catch Min as she’s flung toward a tree, and both of us tumble across the round until we crash into a boulder. 

She wheezes, and although I know it’s probably cruel, I’m relieved she’s still alive. I don’t want to die alone.

“We’re going to die,” I say again, and the weight of it hits me. The world is ending. Anyone who survives the initial disaster won’t live for very long. There’s nothing left.

Min shrugs. “Same old, same old.” 

“And not come back,” I remind her. “For me, at least."

“You know what?” She rolls onto her back. “Coming back is a pain in the ass. I want to know what happens when I’m left the fuck alone.”

We’re quiet for a few minutes, letting the rain wash the ash off of us. The storm begins to pass, and I know the clock is ticking again.

“How long?” I ask.

“Probably thirty minutes.”

In Algebra, that would have felt like a lifetime.

“Hey,” I say. “Where do you think we would have been in ten years?”

I can tell it’s an enormous effort for Min to turn over and look at me, but she manages it. “What do you mean?" 

“I think we would have moved out of Fire Lake,” I say. “Gotten well-paying jobs somewhere outside of Idaho. I would have proposed to you once we were settled down. Gotten married. Had a couple kids.”

Min laughs weakly. “I thought you hated kids.”

“I would have loved ours.” I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat. “I would have loved you. I would have had time for you to fall in love with me.” 

“Maybe I already did,” she says quietly, and she leans forward to kiss me again.

She doesn’t make it.

I don’t see the tree until it’s too late. All I can do is shove Min out of the way as it lands.

I can’t feel anything.

I vaguely register Min screaming, but my eyes are unfocused and I can’t move my mouth. I smell blood, and wonder why.

Yeah, I fucking hated this dipshit town. Yeah, the world was a broken, decrepit wreck. But I loved Min.

I wanted to live.

…

00:05:46

MIN

He’s dead in an instant. Shoved me out of the way of that tree, then died right there under it. I wipe blood from the corner of his mouth, then shakily kiss his forehead.

He’s unresponsive. Gone.

I gather the last of my strength to stand, then lean against the boulder next to me. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die on my feet. And I know I am. I can see the fire circling me, inching closer.

Five minutes, at most. 

In the haze of smoke, I see a figure approaching. His clothes are singed, his sunglasses off. He’s staring at an iPad as he walks, heading directly for me.

“Melinda?” he calls.

It’s him. The black-suited man.

I don’t move. I see him spot me, pull a knife from his clothes.

I will keep my promise. I will die on my feet.

“It’s Min,” I say, getting a good look at his eyes for the first time. A greenish-grey, with a dark, almost black outline. The same black ring that circles my iris. 

Now I see it. Now I see the resemblance. I don’t think I ever would have under other circumstances.

“Min,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

And he drops the iPad on the ground. Smashes it. Hurls the knife at a nearby tree.

Sits next to me, coughing from smoke inhalation.

“Am I going to come back?” I finally ask. If anyone knows, it will be him.

He shakes his head, and I feel a staggering wave of relief. “Not this time.” 

I’m dizzy, and the fire is making it unbearably hot, but I will die on my feet. 

I think I do.

At the end, there’s no way to know for sure when I fall. 

**Author's Note:**

> haha hi that was depressing yes  
> peppermintack.tumblr.com


End file.
